Discussion Intel bringing back 22nm Haswell CPUs in face of 14nm shortages

PingSpike

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Feb 25, 2004
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Its in German. Apparently they're bringing back limited 22nm haswell processors for the low end since 14nm is constrained.

Aside from the obvious joke that Intel is literally going backwards now, I have a lot of questions about this:
Are they bringing back the old chipsets? Are they still using DDR3? Or is this some tweak on the old process to get it running on new chipsets and using DDR4? Or are you going to require one of the rare skylake to coffeelake era boards that support DDR3?

Google Translated
 

Gideon

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Nov 27, 2007
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I just can't make sense of this rumor. Why only the horribly outdated 2/2 Pentium, that's slower than 50$ AMD Athlon? Considering 22nm yields, they could just as well release Core i3's (using the same amount of silicon) that would be more competitive.

Also DDR3 and old chipsets ... unless they are selling some leftover stock, this rumor makes absolutely no sense
 
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uzzi38

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I just can't make sense of this rumor. Why only the horribly outdated 2/2 Pentium, that's slower than 50$ AMD Athlon? Considering 22nm yields, they could just as well release Core i3's (using the same amount of silicon) that would be more competitive.

Also DDR3 and old chipsets ... unless they are selling some leftover stock, this rumor makes absolutely no sense

Its being brought back from the brink of extinction because those are the chips where performance isn't important, and supply is the most constrained for that market too.

It makes perfect sense. And it's not a rumour.
 

rainy

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Gideon

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Its being brought back from the brink of extinction because those are the chips where performance isn't important, and supply is the most constrained for that market too.

It makes perfect sense. And it's not a rumour.
Thanks, I was obviously wrong.

Anyway, IMO this sucks balls. It should be illegal for OEMs to buy such weak-ass chips from 2013 for new machines in 2019/2020, especially considering the competition has way better alternatives.

Obviously top-end 47xx chips hold up well (my niece still manages game just fine, even on my 2500K), that doesn't mean that 2/2 chips being bought now (for the next 5 years) would really be all that good ....
 
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Nothingness

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I am writing this on a Haswell chip, the i7 4770k. My daughter games on an old i7 4790k rig. So far, both are holding up pretty well.
Agreed. I still run on a 4770K and am happy with it more than 6 years after buying it.

But in this case Intel is talking about bringing back the G3420. 2 cores blocked at 3.2 GHz. Not the same category as the 4770/4790L :)
 

DrMrLordX

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It makes perfect sense.

It also makes sense for a beached whale to stink after it dies. Doesn't mean it's particularly encouraging. At least the crabs will be happy.

especially considering the competition has way better alternatives.

Interestingly enough, AMD hasn't targeted this market segment at all. They get the dregs of the Zen design efforts. Yet those chips are still better than also-ran Haswell chips. The G3420 in particular has a 53W TDP. AMD can easily slide under that with their Picasso products. Renoir will have no problems there either. Will OEMs switch to AMD en masse? Will AMD be able to supply them all?
 
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ehume

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Agreed. I still run on a 4770K and am happy with it more than 6 years after buying it.

But in this case Intel is talking about bringing back the G3420. 2 cores blocked at 3.2 GHz. Not the same category as the 4770/4790L :)
I saw that; read the article via Google Translate. But interesting (to me, anyway): the integrated graphics on the G3420 seems to replicate the performance of the i7 4770k. Since I don't game, I use the iGPU. Since I use a 1920x1080 display, the G3420 chip would be Good Enough(tm).

Edit: I guess all I need is a POS CPU, then.
 

Gideon

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Interestingly enough, AMD hasn't targeted this market segment at all. They get the dregs of the Zen design efforts. Yet those chips are still better than also-ran Haswell chips. The G3420 in particular has a 53W TDP. AMD can easily slide under that with their Picasso products. Renoir will have no problems there either. Will OEMs switch to AMD en masse? Will AMD be able to supply them all?

Why doesn't the 50$ zen+ (and Vega 3) Athlon 3000G count? It at least has SMT and AVX2 enabled. Uses considerably less power and has a much better iGPU.

What irks me the most, isn't even Intel reviving 22nm (which it seems, they must), but them still castrating the silicon as much as possible. If they are gonna revive these chips they could have at least rebranded i3-4130 as a pentium and sell it as an alternative to Skylakes.

This pentium doesn't even have AVX!
 
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PingSpike

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I saw that; read the article via Google Translate. But interesting (to me, anyway): the integrated graphics on the G3420 seems to replicate the performance of the i7 4770k. Since I don't game, I use the iGPU. Since I use a 1920x1080 display, the G3420 chip would be Good Enough(tm).

Edit: I guess all I need is a POS CPU, then.

I wouldn't think these would be a big seller in the DIY market. Just buy some one's off lease Dell off ebay for about the price of the processor itself.

I'm sort of curious where these things are going to go. Its no secret that Intel has a hilariously...broad...set of skus available to the low end, although apparently they now struggle to supply any of them. But I always thought most of them were inferior to buying a outdated quad core off ebay.

I'm wondering if these will be shipped straight to China or if we'll be seeing some craptop deals with them soon.
 
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uzzi38

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Interestingly enough, AMD hasn't targeted this market segment at all. They get the dregs of the Zen design efforts. Yet those chips are still better than also-ran Haswell chips. The G3420 in particular has a 53W TDP. AMD can easily slide under that with their Picasso products. Renoir will have no problems there either. Will OEMs switch to AMD en masse? Will AMD be able to supply them all?

Uh... yes they have? It's called RAVEN2, it's a 14nm 2c4t die with only 3 Vega CUs, it's used in embedded products and the Athlon 3000G. Also the 300GE, 300U and something else I've forgetten. The 3200U?
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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This pentium doesn't even have AVX!

That's the only thing that doesn't make sense. Everything else (more or less?) makes some sense, not a lot, but honestly, Intel keeps some of those old fabs lines "warm", making chipsets, small batches of out-dated CPUs, for specific OEM / embedded usages, etc.

And honestly, for a business desktop, Haswell isn't THAT bad, not really even bad for gaming, if you have a 4C/4T or a 4C/8T. It's even somewhat competitive with 1st/2nd-Gen Ryzen CPUs for gaming (though, it doesn't have the core counts of Ryzen).

I think that Intel should possibly release a NEW SKU, one that hits 4.0Ghz stock speed (a trivial OC for a G3258 on a cheapo H81 board), and HAS AVX / AVX2 opcodes. That would make a neat little "killer budget CPU".

But the only problem with that is, OEM re-qualification. If OEM's already have defined and qualified platforms, that they can pull out the assembly lines out of the mothballs, then that makes them cheaper for them to be re-released as well.

What's next, TSMC supply constraints, force NVidia to re-release GTX 460 cards? :p

Long live Haswell and Fermi! (LOL)

Edit: Just musing, perhaps this "rumor" is made-up? And yet, the G3240 is still in production, not because Intel is capacity-constrained, and going back to 22nm technology, so much as they sometimes have "long-term stable platform" CPUs, chipsets, mobos, etc., for OEM business desktops, for longevity, and this particular CPU just happens to fall into that category, and is still being produced, and always was. IOW, they're not bringing back a "classic", it was continuously (more or less) still in production, at low levels, for their "long term stable" customers. (Sometimes, they promise availability of particular CPUs for 10 years or more. These could be one of those CPU SKUs.)

IOW, the facts may be true (that Intel is now and still producing the G3240), but the rumor (of Intel going backwards to 22nm technology, because of capacity constraints of 14nm) may be a false, BS, rumor.
 
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moinmoin

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It should be illegal for OEMs to buy such weak-ass chips from 2013 for new machines in 2019/2020, especially considering the competition has way better alternatives.
I don't care about re-releasing weak chips being illegal. But I doubt these chips will have all the known security weaknesses fixed in hardware, and that should be illegal to re-release.
 

DeathReborn

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Intel dropping the ball(s) so spectacularly with 10nm, the seemingly endless 14nm++++++ releases & inability to keep up with supply just makes my keeping hold of my 4770K for yet another year all the more satisfying.

I do feel that if Intel had slowed down it's architecture releases a little (skipped one for example) they wouldn't have quite so many 14nm SKU's to make. There's less shame in admitting you goofed than trying to bluster through it and making a right hash of it.
 

SPBHM

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way, way better than buying some "atom" based thing

also this could be interesting for motherboards, if someone is producing new ones.
 

BigDaveX

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It wouldn't surprise me if Intel is still offering Core 2 and Nehalem-based products for embedded applications; this is probably just one step up from that, and intended to supply emerging markets and applications where something based on Skylake or newer wouldn't be any real improvement.
 

DrMrLordX

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Why doesn't the 50$ zen+ (and Vega 3) Athlon 3000G count?

That would be the dregs I mentioned above.

This pentium doesn't even have AVX!

Exactly. Even AMD's no-effort entries into the low-end beat it like a drum in power and performance.

Uh... yes they have? It's called RAVEN2, it's a 14nm 2c4t die with only 3 Vega CUs, it's used in embedded products and the Athlon 3000G. Also the 300GE, 300U and something else I've forgetten. The 3200U?

Like I said, the dregs. None of those are even on 7nm. Those are older designs repurposed for the low power/low price segment. Intel should be able to crush that junk with IceLake or even Comet-U/Y, but they can't because . . . reasons.
 

lobz

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I am writing this on a Haswell chip, the i7 4770k. My daughter games on an old i7 4790k rig. So far, both are holding up pretty well.
4790K here too :) but... these CPUs have practically nothing in common with the 2C2T Haswell Pentium :D
 

lobz

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That would be the dregs I mentioned above.



Exactly. Even AMD's no-effort entries into the low-end beat it like a drum in power and performance.



Like I said, the dregs. None of those are even on 7nm. Those are older designs repurposed for the low power/low price segment. Intel should be able to crush that junk with IceLake or even Comet-U/Y, but they can't because . . . reasons.
Renoir is almost here anyway :)
 

Magic Carpet

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liahos1

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whats interesting is there is demand for low end 22nm parts in 2019 when everyone is talking about intel's demise because it hasn't ramped a 10nm desktop part
;)
 

Gideon

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whats interesting is there is demand for low end 22nm parts in 2019 when everyone is talking about intel's demise because it hasn't ramped a 10nm desktop part
;)
Yes, there will probably also be some demand for 14nm 4/4 Pentiums in 2022. Just imagine if Intel had the same market share then as is currently served by 22nm (and the rest would belong to the competition) wouldn't be quite the same company as now, don't you think?